Match Point (2005)

Premise: Social climbing Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) takes a position as a tennis pro in a ritzy country club, where he is befriended by the fabulously wealthy Tom Hewett (Matthew Goode). Although Chris begins romancing Tom's sister, Chloe (Emily Mortimer), it's really Tom's fiancee, Nola (Scarlett Johansson) that Chris can't keep his eyes, or his hands, off of.

Lady: It's the best Woody Allen movie.
Man: It's not much of a Woody Allen movie.

Isn't it nice when the two people sitting behind you do all your work for you? Of course it is!

Oh, Woody, you really shouldn't have. Except that you totally should have. It's about damn time, really, that you left behind the stuffy corners of New York where your alleged creativity has been stagnated for years and wrote something completely different: a sleek thriller. It's about time that someone picked the new Hugh Grant, so you did that, too (that would be Matthew Goode, for the record). It's about time that no one forced pretty American ingenues to adopt ridiculous and unflattering English accents, so you let your new muse stay American (Scarlett Johansson, if you're keeping score). And, finally, it's about time that you stopped writing the "you" character in and expecting someone else to do it because everyone fails at it. Sure, Will Ferrell hinted at this in Melinda and Melinda, but here the transformation is complete.

Oh, my little septuagenarian, what a delight this was! The way you filmed London after you abandoned the idea of setting the film in the Hamptons was fresh and lovely. In addition, you very kindly gave me the exact ending that I've been craving for years and years, the likes of which no movie has seen fit to deliver.

You made me forget all about the corpse-like appearance Johansson made on the cover of Tom Ford's skeevy Vanity Fair Hollywood issue. You made me remember why I liked her in the first place. She's spunky as Nola, all husky whispers and knowing sexuality, while actively involved in luring men and refusing to acknowledge her power over them. By the end I may have considered her on the verge of becoming bat shit crazy, but, hey, I kind of liked that, too.

The winsome Mortimer worked wonderfully in what I have come to expect as her type. For a couple of scenes in there, I had half-wished that you had cast someone with a bit more of Kelly Macdonald's dynamism, but I suppose that would have resulted in a different kind of Chloe. Ah, well.

At his relatively young age, the fact that Goode seems to have embraced both sides of the Hugh Grant persona (bumbling and shy love interest and charming rake) will serve him well for years to come on this side of the Atlantic. We like that sort of thing around here.

In the nearly ten years that have slipped by since I first glimpsed Rhys Meyers writhing in the Irish sea in The Governess, he's done a lot with himself. He's all swagger and bluster and on the verge of snapping into a homicidal rage most of the time, but, when he gets to hint at the vulnerability underneath it all, not the typical male ingenue low self-esteem/no-body-sees-the-real-me crap, but the guilt, the remorse that plagues a pretty man who does whatever he has to to get everything he wants, well, that's something worth staying tuned for. Besides, he manages to look highly feminine and kind of like a cold fish and still be sexy. That's a feat, my friend.

I can only hope the next Johansson/Allen match turns out as well. A

P.S. Watched Mr. Smith Goes to Washington last night. I love the combination of Jimmy Stewart and Frank Capra. So cheesy and full of warm fuzzies.